Commuters in Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asian got into a double whammy on Tuesday evening when they were unable to book a ride with Grab, whereas fares charged by its rival Uber skyrocketed over ‘high demand’.

Users in Vietnam reported they were unable to access the service from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm, leaving them no other choice than to switch to Uber or hail a conventional cab or xe om (motorbike taxi).

During the outage, the app greeted its user with an error message, saying “Looks like we weren't able to connect to our server. Please try again in a few minutes.”

Hung, a Ho Chi Minh City resident, said he could not book a ride during this period, when he was trying to travel from his home in Binh Thanh District to District 1.

He made another booking attempt using another phone but also had no success.

GrabBike drivers in the Mekong Delta province of Can Tho. Photo: Tuoi Tre

“I tried two different smartphones using two different operating systems and eventually had to call for a cab,” Hung recalled.

Duong, who lives in Go Vap District, said she had to switch to Uber after spending nearly 45 minutes on hailing a ride via Grab to no avail.

The unexpected high demand only helped send Uber fares through the roof.

A journey from Tan Dinh Ward, District 1 to Go Vap District, which normally costs about VND54,000 ($2.37), spiked to VND133,000 ($5.83) and VND160,000 ($7) during the Grab outage.

A representative of Grab Vietnam admitted to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Tuesday night that their booking system encountered an error.

A group of GrabBike drivers in Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Drivers were also unable to gain access to the app.

According to Hai, a GrabBike driver, the app has suffered from repeated errors over the last few days. For instance, the app was filled with Thai language for a whilte on Tuesday morning, he elaborated.

The technical error appeared to occur not only in Vietnam but also in other Southeast Asian countries.

Grab Singapore updated on Twitter that the problem had been fixed at 11:00 pm on Tuesday, about five and a half hours after it first announced the issue.

In response to queries from The Straits Times, Grab said in a statement on Wednesday that the outage was "due to problems with our underlying infrastructure". 

An Uber driver carries a passenger in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Grab has recently announced that it will take over Uber operations in Southeast Asia. Uber will be entitled to 27.5 percent of Grab’s shares in return.

Uber will be exiting Vietnam on April 8.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade previously ordered Grab to provide all information and documents regarding its deal with Uber prior to Tuesday, April 3.

However, the request has not been met, thus competent authorities do not have enough grounds to determine the legitimacy of the transaction.

Grab currently offers services in more than 190 cities across Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia.

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